Ecocritical Perspectives on Nordic Cinema: From Nature Appreciation to Social Conformism

Abstract

This chapter provides an analysis of key environmental approaches in Nordic cinema. Environmental considerations have consistently featured as a significant hallmark of ʼnational cinema’, often acting as a means to demonstrate the ʼnatural’ constitution of national narratives. Kääpä outlines the diverse ways in which the environment has been appropriated for these purposes, as well as the means through which these appropriations have been presented as adhering to a natural state of things, often in lieu of conservative narratives of nation-building. By addressing these ʼnaturalised’ anthropogenic and -centric narratives as conscious political projects, the chapter constructs an ecocritical perspective that unravels the mechanics of environmental appropriation to analyse the ways national cinemas have to be invariably considered as fallible, politically constructed anthropocentric projects. Its central case study, Force Majeure (Ruben Östlund 2014) exemplifies many of these aspects of Nordic cinema, revealing some of the ideological problems of these productions.